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Many of Spain’s Sephardic Jews Still Waiting for Citizenship

MADRID — Six months after announcing a significant easing of the naturalization process for Sephardic Jews, the Spanish government has yet to put the rules into practice, leaving many applicants for citizenship frustrated.

The change, announced in November by the foreign and justice ministers, was presented at the time as a conciliatory gesture toward Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors were expelled more than five centuries ago during the Spanish Inquisition, one of the darkest chapters in Spanish history.

But the naturalization process is unchanged, with no specific date set for the promised overhaul to go into effect. A spokeswoman for the nation’s Justice Ministry said last week that the government hoped to approve the reform soon as part of a broader overhaul of Spain’s civil code.

Since November, the Justice Ministry has granted citizenship to 20 Sephardic Jews under the existing naturalization rules, with 2,900 Sephardic citizenship requests under review, most filed before the announcement.

The changes call for Spain to offer citizenship to any Jew whose Sephardic origins can be certified by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Spain, a private umbrella organization for Jewish groups. The overhaul removed some onerous requirements for applicants, like forcing them to renounce their current citizenship.

The Federation of Jewish Communities said it had received about 1,000 certification requests since November, but had been unable to process any until the new rules become official. In the meantime, the federation is creating a databank of the claimants.

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Casa Sefarad-Israel, a state-financed agency created by Spain to revive Sephardic culture, said it remained confident that the change would take effect but could not predict when or discuss a time frame.

Several Sephardic Jews complained, in e-mails, about Spain’s failure to make the changes, saying they had sought information and help from the authorities in Madrid and Spanish diplomats overseas, to no avail.

“The way they handle the subject is very disappointing, and in a way I find it insulting,” said Jacob Levy, an Israeli-American retiree who speaks Ladino, the language of Jews originating from Spain.

Mr. Levy said he had contacted the Spanish Consulate in New York and was told that he must renounce his current citizenship if he wanted to apply for a Spanish passport.

Rachel Delia Benaim, an American student, said she was related to the Toledano family, one of Spain’s most illustrious Sephardic families. She said Spain had let her down in her citizenship bid and blamed either the country’s inability to put promised laws into practice or “resistance from the Spaniards to actualize their promise.”

Either way, she said, becoming Spanish “has proven no easy feat.”

The Spanish government, meanwhile, is preparing to tighten criteria for other citizenship applicants. Under a draft law unveiled in March, future applicants will be required to demonstrate Spanish-language proficiency as part of a new test.

A version of this article appears in print on May 20, 2013, on Page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Many of Spain’s Sephardic Jews Still Waiting for Citizenship. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe